Order of the Rose and Cross

Why are we here?
By Frater I.D.V.A.

The purpose of this brief paper is to suggest possible answers to this question on two levels: on the microcosmic level, the raison d’être of our Order; and, on a macrocosmic scale, the wider issue of what is the purpose of humanity: why are we – finite, fallible human beings – here, in this material universe ?

We work ceremonially and speculatively within the Order of the Rose and Cross in order to acquire a better understanding of Christian esotericism and to further our individual quests for an active way towards the Divine Vision and the Divine Union. Expressed more poetically, we seek to regain what was lost in the Fall and to grasp the meaning of the revealed Word.

Continuing in this mode, we may truly say that within our Order we who seek that Word have found it, for we recognise Who and what is that Word. It is the Alpha and the Omega; the Word of St. John’s Gospel that was in the Beginning, is now and, paradoxically, is yet to come. We, as Rosicrucian Christians, acknowledge that Word – the Word of God that is God – as the Repairer, the Restorer, the Regenerator of humanity: Yehesuhuah, Jesus Christ the Living God. He it is whom we seek, here and now, to repair our inner selves, our spiritual essence, that was damaged and distorted by the primeval Fall. He it is who restores each one of us to wholeness, for does not the Creator also restore and repair ? And in the macrocosm is it not also He who will, at the end of all things, repair the damaged universe and restore it to its primal beauty and perfection ?

In this we can see a polarity, a balancing of the finite and the infinite, the working out in time of a universal salvation, and its realisation in eternity. at the one pole is the Alpha of the Beginning, the active process of creation ex nihilo, and at the other is the Omega of the End, the final ceasing of all action in the absolute stillness of perfect, universal harmony. But these are not single, unique and static points. The creation of matter out of nothingness is followed by the creation of life, of living beings who are self-aware and to whom is freely given Freedom of Will – with its seemingly inevitable consequence of a freely chosen rejection of the creator and with the mortality that this choice entails. Nor is this all, for to bring fully into His creation the promise of salvation from evil and from death, for all those who seek it, the creator Himself enters His created world in the form and material substance of Man. Thus is the Incarnation of Christ also a part of creation – as is His self-willed sacrifice, His death upon the cross, for all living beings must die and, as man, so Christ too must die. Only with His Resurrection do we see the beginning of a new world; only with the Resurrection does the Alpha begin its transformation into the Omega.

If we consider it kabbalistically, creation can be seen as an ascent of the Tree of Life following the descending emanation of the Spirit of God before the act of creation itself. The creative process – of the universe of matter, of living beings and of Christ’s coming as a child into the world of man - is represented on the Tree of Life in the world of Assiah (or Action) by the four Sephiroth below the veil of Paroketh. The crucifixion rends the veil and the Risen Christ appears triumphant in Tiphereth, ascending in glory to Daath: at the very point of the barrier which separates that which can be attained in this material world from that which we cannot know until we ourselves have passed from this life into eternal life.

But while we yet live in this world we can know Christ – the Risen Christ who has redeemed us – and as we learn to accept our salvation and to understand what it means, the duties and burdens it places upon us, so we, as commingled Body, Soul and Spirit, ascend the Tree of Life ourselves, not only in this world but also in the higher worlds of Yetzirah (or Formation) and Briah (or Creation). But beyond the Abyss we cannot go; we may glimpse the light of the Supernal Triad, we may receive the merest hint of what it is to experience Chokmah and Binah – Kether must always remain utterly beyond us in this life – but we cannot attain them until the universal work of redemption is complete.

And here lies our duty and our service: to strive against our own weaknesses and our own failures; to work towards the goal of an acceptance of salvation by all men and women; to be able through our own increasing awareness of Christ – intensified by our meditative and ceremonial work – to bring others to an awareness of the Light of Christ; to work against the powers of the Qlippoth, the Tree of Evil, which seek to conceal that Light; and even to bring that Light to those who have chosen the darkness, for the work of salvation cannot be complete until all of creation is redeemed.

This is the other pole, the Omega that will be attained fully at the Second Coming of Christ, when He returns not in time and space but beyond time and space, to give up His kingdom to the Father – Who is Christ in Eternity – when He shall be All in All, when all things shall be well and when all things shall be saved. At this fusion of time and eternity we shall finally attain to Kether in Atziluth, to the state of absolute perfection that is Being in Perfect Love for ever. Then shall the two poles have become one; the Trinity shall have become a Unity, and we shall have passed from the Vision to the Union and onward to the Unity itself.

[This is a revised version of an address given to a private group of Christian esotericists at Easter, 1988]